Science advisers at NASA resign

Three members of the NASA Advisory Council's Science Committee have resigned over a difference of opinion with agency leadership about their role. NASA announced the resignations of Eugene H. Levy, provost of Rice University; Charles Kennel, director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography; and Wesley T. Huntress Jr., director of Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory, on Aug. 17. Levy and Huntress were asked by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin to leave, while Kennel resigned on his own. According to a NASA spokesman, the resignations do not mean that the agency is stacking the committee with sympathetic members; rather, they reflect a desire of the administrator to get advice based on NASA's priorities and the parameters that have been set for the agency by Congress and the President. Specifically, the spokesman noted that debating about the level of funding for NASA's science program−about which all three have spoken publicly−is not the role of the council.